Two people, including a woman, were killed in reported shelling on a house at Jolpaitoli under Ghumdum union of Naikhongchhari upazila in Bandarban district on Monday (February 05, 2024). One of the deceased was identified as Hosne Ara, 50, wife of Badsha Mia while the identity of the other could not be known immediately. Myanmar violence spillovers: 7 Educational Institutions shut in Bandarban Shafiqul Islam, Jolpaitoli Ward 1 member, said the explosion occurred around 2:30 pm inside Bangladesh and two people were found dead after the explosion. ASP (Lama circle, Bandarban district) Md Nurul Anwar said he heard about the deaths of two people but they are yet to identify them. 37 more Nasaka personnel take shelter in Bangladesh; total number now 95

Russian forces fired cruise missiles at the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa overnight and shelling destroyed homes in the eastern Donetsk region early Wednesday, killing at least six people and injuring more than a dozen others, regional officials said. A Ukrainian military spokesman said Russian forces have stepped up aerial strikes in their more than 15-month war against Ukraine, just as the country's troops have reported limited gains in an early counteroffensive. Also Read: Ukraine recaptures village as Russian forces hold other lines, fire on fleeing civilians elsewhere In the east, Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko wrote on Telegram that at least three people died after shelling destroyed seven homes and damaged dozens more in the cities of Kramatorsk and Konstantinovka. In Odesa, three employees of a food warehouse were killed and seven others injured in a strike that damaged homes, a warehouse, shops and cafes downtown, he regional administration said on Facebook. Another six people — guards and residents of a neighboring house — were injured. Searchers were looking for possible survivors under the rubble, it said. Also Read: Ukraine's dam collapse is both a fast-moving disaster and a slow-moving ecological catastrophe The attack on the port city, launched from the Black Sea, involved four Kalibr cruise missiles, three of which were intercepted by air defenses, the administration said. Andriy Kovalov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's General Staff, said Russian forces have increased missile and aerial strikes on Ukraine. In a briefing, he said strikes on the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kirovohrad regions, in addition to the Odesa region, involved Kh-22 cruise missiles, sea-launched Kalibr cruise missiles, and Iranian-made Shahed drones. Nine were intercepted. Kovalov said Ukrainian forces made advances on several fronts of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, and fighting was continuing in or near at least two settlements in the eastern Donetsk region. Russia has occupied and controls nearly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory. Also Read: Top UN court allows a record 32 countries to intervene in Ukraine's genocide case against Russia Britain's Ministry of Defense, which has regularly issued updates on the conflict, wrote on Twitter that southern Ukraine "has often been more permissible for Russian air operations" compared with other parts of the front. Separately, the mayor of the central city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown, said the death toll from a Russian strike a day earlier that hit an apartment building had risen to 12.

Russian shelling destroyed homes and killed one person in northern Ukraine's Kharkiv province, the region's governor said Sunday, while fighting raged in the fiercely contested eastern city of Bakhmut. The town of Kupiansk is about 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Russian border; the region has come under frequent attacks even though Russian ground forces withdrew from the area nearly six months ago. Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said at least five homes were razed in the latest attack that left a 65-year-old man dead. Two civilians were killed over the past day in Bakhmut, Donetsk province Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said. Russian forces have spent months trying to capture the city as part of their offensive in eastern Ukraine, and the area has seen some of the bloodiest ground fighting of the war. In recent days, Ukrainian units destroyed two key bridges just outside Bakhmut, including one linking it to the nearby town of Chasiv Yar along the last remaining Ukrainian resupply route, according to U.K. military intelligence officials and other Western analysts. Also Read: Biden, Scholz to huddle on Ukraine war at White House Associated Press journalists near Bakhmut on Saturday saw a pontoon bridge set up by Ukrainian soldiers to help the few remaining residents reach the nearby village of Khromove. Later, the AP team saw at least five houses on fire as a result of attacks in Khromove, a nearby settlement. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, assessed last week that Kyiv’s actions may point to a looming pullout from parts of the city. It said Ukrainian troops may “conduct a limited and controlled withdrawal from particularly difficult sections of eastern Bakhmut,” while seeking to inhibit Russian movement there and limit exit routes to the west. Capturing Bakhmut would not only give Russian fighters a rare battlefield gain after months of setbacks but might rupture Ukraine’s supply lines and allow the Kremlin’s forces to press on toward other Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk province. In southern Ukraine, a woman and two children were killed in a residential building in the Kherson region village of Poniativka, the Ukrainian president's office reported. A Russian artillery shell hit a car in Burdarky, another Kharkiv province village, killing a man and his wife, the regional prosecutor's office said. Casualties increased from an attack earlier in the week. Ukraine’s emergency services reported Sunday that the death toll from a Russian missile strike that hit a five-story apartment building in southern Ukraine on Thursday rose to 13. One of the few areas where Russia and Ukraine have cooperated during the war is grain shipments. On that front, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sunday his country is engaged in “intense efforts” to extend an agreement that allowed Ukraine to export grain from its Black Sea ports. The deal, which the U.N. and Turkey brokered in July 2022 and was extended by four months in November, is set to expire March 18. In a speech at the opening of the U.N. Conference on Least Developed Countries in Doha, Qatar, Cavusoglu said he had discussed another extension with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The agreement, which also allows Russia to export food and fertilizers, has helped temper rising global food prices. However, Russian officials have complained that shipments of the country’s fertilizer were not being facilitated under the agreement, leaving the deal's renewal in question.

Russian forces struck eastern and southern Ukraine early Sunday as utility crews scrambled to restore power, water and heating with the onset of snow and frigid temperatures, while civilians continued to leave the southern city of Kherson because of the devastation wreaked by recent attacks and their fears of more ahead. With persistent snowfall blanketing the capital, Kyiv, Sunday, analysts predicted that wintry weather — bringing with it frozen terrain and grueling fighting conditions — could have an increasing impact on the conflict that has raged since Russian forces invaded Ukraine more than nine months ago. Both sides were already bogged down by heavy rain and muddy battlefield conditions, experts said. After a blistering series of Russian artillery strikes on infrastructure that started last month, workers were fanning out in around-the-clock deployments to restore key basic services as many Ukrainians were forced to cope with only a few hours of electricity per day — if any. Ukrenergo, the state power grid operator, said Sunday that electricity producers are now supplying about 80% of demand, compared to 75% the previous day. Read more: Civilians escape Kherson after Russian strikes on freed city The deprivations have revived jousting between Ukraine’s president and Kyiv’s mayor. Mayor Vitali Klitschko on Sunday defended himself against allegations levelled by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that too many Kyiv residents were still without power and that insufficient centers had been set up for them to stock up on food, water, battery power and other essentials. Kitschko wrote on Telegram that hundreds of such centers are in operation, as well as hundreds of emergency generators, adding that “I do not want, especially in the current situation, to enter into political battles. It’s ridiculous.” The president and the mayor have sporadically sparred since Zelenskyy took office in 2019. Zelenskyy has accused Klitschko and officials around him of corruption, while Klitschko contends the president’s office has put him under political pressure. The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that has been closely monitoring developments in Ukraine, said reporting from both sides indicated that heavy rain and mud have had an impact — along with wider freezing expected along the front lines in the coming days. “It is unclear if either side is actively planning or preparing to resume major offensive or counter-offensive operations at that time, but the meteorological factors that have been hindering such operations will begin lifting,” it said in a note published Saturday. ISW said Russian forces were digging in further east of the city of Kherson, from which Ukrainian forces expelled them more than two weeks ago, and continued “routine artillery fire” across the Dnieper River. The think tank also cited reports that Russian forces were moving multiple launch rocket and ground-to-air missile systems into positions closer to the city as part of a possible plan to step up “the tempo of rocket and anti-air missile strikes against ground targets north of the Dnieper River in the coming days.” Read more: Russia rains missiles on recaptured Ukrainian city Kherson city, which was liberated more than two weeks ago — a development that Zelenskyy called a turning point in the war — has faced intense shelling in recent days by Russian forces nearby. The top U.N. official in Ukraine said civilians, many of whom lamented unlivable conditions and feared more strikes to come, continued to pour out of Kherson on Sunday. “The level of destruction, the scope of the destruction, what’s required in the city and in the oblast — it’s massive,” said U.N. resident coordinator Denise Brown, referring to the region. U.N. teams were ferrying in supplies like food, water, shelter materials, medicines, and blankets and mattresses, she said. “Time is of the essence, of course, before it becomes an absolute catastrophe,” Brown told The Associated Press in Kherson. Galina Lugova, head of the city’s military administration, said in an interview that evacuation trains had been lined up and bomb shelters set up in all city districts with stoves, beds, first aid kits and fire extinguishers. “We are preparing for a winter in difficult conditions, but we will do everything to make people safe,” Lugova said. Her biggest worry, she said, was “shelling that intensifies every day. Shelling, shelling and shelling again.” On the roads out of the city, some residents felt they had no choice but to leave. “The day before yesterday, artillery hit our house. Four flats burned down. Windows shattered,” said Vitaliy Nadochiy, driving out with a terrier on his lap and a Ukrainian flag dangling from a sun visor. “We can’t be there. There is no electricity, no water, heating. So we are leaving to go to my brother.” In the eastern Donetsk region, five people were killed in shelling over the past day, governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said. Overnight shelling was reported by regional leaders in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk areas to the west. In addition, he said two people were killed in artillery firing on the town of Kurakhove. Kharkiv governor Oleh Syniehubov said one person was killed and three wounded in the northeastern region. Russian rockets hit unspecified railroad facilities in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy’s hometown, on Sunday, according to a regional official. No injuries were immediately reported.

Syrian government forces shelled tent settlements housing families displaced by the country’s conflict in the rebel-held northwest early Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, opposition war monitors and first responders said. The shelling is the latest violation of a truce reached between Russia and Turkey in March 2020 that ended a Russian-backed government offensive on Idlib province that is the last major rebel-held stronghold in Syria. Read more: 77 migrants killed as boat sinks off Syrian coast The truce has been repeatedly violated over the past two years killing and wounding scores of people. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that government forces fired about 30 rockets toward rebel-held areas, including the Maram camp Sunday morning killing six and wounding 25. It said the dead included two children and one woman. The tent settlement is just northwest of the provincial capital of Idlib. Rebel factions responded by targeting government positions with artillery and missiles in the area of Saraqib, east of Idlib, and the al-Ghab plain, the observatory reported. Read more: Satellite image: Israel attack damaged Syrian airport runway The opposition’s Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets, reported that six people were killed, including two children and a woman, and 75 injured in shelling targeting at least six camps west of the capital. The pro-government Sham FM radio station said Syrian government forces shelled positions of the al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, the most powerful militant group in Idlib. It said Syrian and Russian warplanes also attacked the areas. Syria’s conflict broke out in March 2011 and has since killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million and left large parts of Syria destroyed.

Russia's military pounded residential areas across Ukraine overnight, claiming gains, as Ukrainian forces pressed a counteroffensive to try to take back an occupied southern region, striking the last working bridge over a river in the Russian-occupied Kherson region, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday. A Russian rocket attack on the city of Kramatorsk killed three people and wounded 13 others Friday night, according to the mayor. Kramatorsk is the headquarters for Ukrainian forces in the country's war-torn east. The attack came less than a day after 11 other rockets were fired at the city, one of the two main Ukrainian-held ones in Donetsk province, the focus of an ongoing Russian offensive to capture eastern Ukraine's Donbas region. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Saturday its forces had taken control of Pisky, a village on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk, the provincial capital that pro-Moscow separatists have controlled since 2014. Russian troops and the Kremlin-backed rebels are trying to seize Ukrainian-held areas north and west of the city of Donetsk to expand the separatists' self-proclaimed republic. But the Ukrainian military said Saturday that its forces had prevented an overnight advance toward the smaller cities of Avdiivka and Bakhmut. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov also claimed that Russian strikes near Kramatorsk, 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Donetsk city, destroyed a U.S.-supplied multiple rocket launcher and ammunition. Ukrainian authorities did not acknowledge any military losses but said Russian missile strikes Friday on Kramatorsk had destroyed 20 residential buildings. Neither claim could be independently verified. The Ukrainian governor of neighboring Luhansk province, part of the Donbas region that was overrun by Russian forces last month, claimed that Ukrainian troops still held a small area in the province. Writing on Telegram, Luhansk Gov. Serhii Haidai said the defending troops were holed up inside an oil refinery on the edge of Lysychansk, a city that Moscow claimed to have captured, and also control areas near a village. “The enemy is burning the ground at the entrances to the Luhansk region because it cannot overcome (Ukrainian resistance along) these few kilometers," Haidai said. "It is difficult to count how many thousands of shells this territory of the free Luhansk region has withstood over the past month and a half.” Further west, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region reported more Russian shelling of the city of Nikopol, which lies across the Dnieper River from Europe's largest nuclear power plant. Gov. Yevhen Yevtushenko did not specify whether Russian troops had fired at Nikopol from the occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Writing on Telegram, he said Saturday that there were no casualties but residential buildings, a power line and a gas pipeline were damaged. Nikopol has undergone daily bombardment for most of the past week, and a volley of shells killed three people and damaged 40 apartment buildings on Thursday, he said. Russia and Ukrainian officials have accused each other of shelling the Zaporizhzhia plant in contravention of nuclear safety rules. Russian troops have occupied the plant since the early days of Moscow's invasion, although the facility's Ukrainian nuclear workers continue to run it. Read:Russian shelling heavy in east; Ukraine strikes key bridge Ukrainian military intelligence alleged Saturday that Russian troops were shelling the plant from a village just kilometers away, damaging a plant pumping station and a fire station. The intelligence directorate said the Russians had bused people into the power plant and mounted a Ukrainian flag on a gun on the outskirts of Enerhodar, the city where the plant is located. “Obviously, it will be used for yet another provocation to accuse the armed forces of Ukraine,” the directorate said, without elaborating. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly alleged that Russian forces were using the plant as a shield while firing at Ukrainian communities across the river, knowing that Ukrainian forces were unlikely to fire back for fear of triggering a nuclear accident. They said Russian shelling on Friday night killed one woman and injured two other civilians in the city of Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine's southern Mykolayiv region also said a woman died there in shelling. For several weeks, Ukraine's military has tried to lay the groundwork for a counteroffensive to reclaim southern Ukraine's Russian-occupied Kherson region. A local Ukrainian official reported Saturday that a Ukrainian strike had damaged the last working bridge over the Dnieper River in the region, further crippling Russian supply lines. “The Russians no longer have any capability to fully turn over their equipment,” Serhii Khlan, a deputy to the Kherson Regional Council, wrote on Facebook. The British Defense Ministry said Saturday that damage to bridges across the Dnieper means that “ground resupply for the several thousand Russian troops on the west bank is almost certainly reliant on just two pontoon ferry crossing points.” “Even if Russia manages to make significant repairs to the (damaged) bridges, they will remain a key vulnerability," the British said. On Saturday, the deputy director of the Russian-controlled Kakhovka hydropower plant 60 kilometers (37 miles) upriver from the city of Kherson said one of its generating units was out of service after a Ukrainian missile strike. Arseniy Zelenskyy said further strikes could endanger the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant because its water intakes use the reservoir formed by the Kakhovka plant's dam. Days after explosions at a Russian air base in Crimea destroyed up to a dozen aircraft, a Ukrainian presidential adviser said Kyiv should make retaking the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014 one of its goals of the war. “Russia started a war against Ukraine and the world in 2014, with its brazen seizure of Crimea. It is obvious that this war should end with the liberation of Crimea," Mykhailo Podoylak, the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, wrote Saturday on Twitter. "And also with the legal punishment of the initiators of the ‘special military operation’” - the Kremlin's term for its war in Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have not claimed responsibility for the explosions Tuesday at the Saki air base in Crimea. Russian defense officials have denied any aircraft were damaged — or that any attack even took place — attributing the blasts to on-site munitions that exploded.

Russia and Ukraine on Friday accused each other of shelling a prison in a separatist eastern region that reportedly killed dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war who were captured after the fall of Mariupol in May. Russia said that Ukraine used U.S.-supplied HIMARS multiple rocket launchers in the attack on the prison in Olenivka, in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region. Officials from Russia and the separatist authorities in Donetsk said the attack killed 53 Ukrainian POWs and wounded 75. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov described the strike as a “bloody provocation” aimed at discouraging Ukrainian soldiers from surrendering. He said that eight prison guards were also wounded by the shelling. The Ukrainian military denied any rocket or artillery strikes on Olenivka, insisting that it wasn’t shelling civilian areas and only strikes Russian military targets. It accused the Russian forces of deliberately shelling the prison in Olenivka in order to accuse Ukraine of war crimes and also to cover up torture and executions there. The statement denounced the Russian claims as part of an “information war to accuse the Ukrainian armed forces of shelling civilian infrastructure and the population to cover up their own treacherous action.” Neither claim could be independently verified. Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-backed separatist leader, said the prison has 193 inmates. He didn't specify how many of them were Ukrainian POWs. Ukrainian authorities in the Donetsk region said Russia has pressed on with the shelling of civilian targets in Ukrainian-held areas. Read:Ukrainian president observes 1st grain exports leaving “The fighting in the region has been intensifying by the day, and civilians must evacuate while it’s still possible,” said Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko. “The Russian army doesn’t worry about civilian casualties. They are pummeling cities and villages in the region.” The Ukrainian troops in Mariupol were taken prisoner after the fierce fighting for Ukraine’s Azov Sea port, where they had been holed up at the giant Azovstal steel mill. Their resistance has become a symbol of Ukrainian struggle against the Russian invasion that started on Feb. 24. The Azov Regiment and other Ukrainian units defended the steel mill for nearly three months, clinging to its underground maze of tunnels. More than 2,400 surrendered in May under relentless Russian attacks from the ground, sea and air. Scores of Ukrainian soldiers were taken to prisons in Russian-controlled areas such as the Donetsk region, a breakaway area in eastern Ukraine which is run by Russian-backed separatist authorities. Some have returned to Ukraine as part of prisoner exchanges with Russia, but families of others have no idea whether their loved ones are alive, or if they will ever come home. In other developments: — Ukrainian officials said Russian forces shelled the country's second-largest city, Kharkiv. City mayor Ihor Terekhov said a central part of the northeastern city was hit, including a two-story building and a higher education institution. Terekhov said the strike occurred just after 4 a.m. on Friday. “The State Emergency Service is already working — they are sorting out the rubble, looking for people under them,” Terekhov said in a Telegram update. — The Ukrainian presidential office said that at least 13 civilians were killed and another 36 were wounded in Russian shelling over the past 24 hours. In the southern city of Mykolaiv, at least four people were killed and seven others were wounded when Russian shelling hit a bus stop. “The Russians have changed their tactics because of the Ukrainian forces’ successes in the south. ... They fire near a bus stop,” Mykolaiv Gov. Vitaliy Kim said. The Russian barrage also hit a facility for distribution of humanitarian assistance, where three people were wounded, officials said. Ukrainian officials also said at least four civilians were killed and another five were wounded in the eastern town of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, which is the focus of the Russian offensive in the Donbas. More than 30 residential buildings and a kindergarten were damaged.

A Russian journalist has been killed during shelling by Russian forces in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Oksana Baulina had been reporting from Kyiv and the western city of Lviv for investigative website The Insider, the outlet said in a statement, reports BBC. She died while filming damage in the city's Podil district, it added. Read: Putin wants 'unfriendly countries' to pay rubles for gas Baulina previously worked for Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny's anti-corruption foundation, and had left Russia. Last year the foundation was made illegal and branded extremist by the authorities, forcing many of its staff to flee abroad. One other person was killed and two injured in the shelling, the Insider said. Baulina had previously sent several reports from Kyiv and the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, The Insider said. The publication expressed its "deepest condolences" to the reporter's family and friends. Investigative journalist Alexey Kovalyov paid tribute to Baulina. Baulina is one of five journalists known to have been killed in a month of war. In early March Yevhenii Sakun, a camera operator for Ukrainian TV channel LIVE who also worked for the Spanish news agency EFE, was killed during shelling of the TV transmission tower in Kyiv. Two weeks later US journalist and filmmaker Brent Renaud, 50, was shot dead as he was filming in the town of Irpin outside Kyiv. Read:7,000 to 15,000 Russian troops dead in Ukraine: NATO And two days later two Fox News journalists - cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, 55, and Oleksandra Kuvshinova, 24 - were killed when their vehicle was struck by incoming fire on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Efforts are ongoing to coordinate safe routes of escape for Ukrainian civilians out of besieged cities as the Russian invasion rounds out its second week. In the time since Russian forces swept into the country, some 2 million people have fled Ukraine, nearly half of them children with most people fleeing to neighboring Poland. Russian troops have captured swaths of territory in the south, but have faced fierce Ukrainian resistance in other regions. Ukrainian officials say pregnant women, women with children and others will be able to leave the city of Sumy on Wednesday through a humanitarian corridor Russia and Ukraine agreed to. Some 5,000 civilians, including many foreign students, were able to flee the city on Tuesday in buses marked with a red cross logo. Life has become increasingly desperate in cities cut from electricity and facing food and medicine shortages. In the port city of Mariupol, which has been without water, heat, sanitary systems and phone service for several days, bodies laid uncollected in the streets. Read:With Ukraine war, Europe's geopolitical map is moving again Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed that his country would fight Russia’s invasion in its cities, fields and riverbanks. ARE CIVILIANS BEING SAFELY EVACUATED? Civilian evacuations are expected Wednesday during a 12-hour-long window from the northeastern border city of Sumy to the city of Poltava. Nearly two dozen buses carrying aid to the city will pick up people seeking to flee, Ukrainian officials say. A senior Ukrainian official says 5,000 people, including 1,700 foreign students were evacuated from Sumy on Tuesday. Ukrainian officials say they will not accept Moscow’s offer to establish safe corridors for civilians to head toward Russia, saying they will only agree to the safe exits leading westward. Other evacuation efforts stalled or were thwarted by Russian shelling on Tuesday. The planned evacuation of civilians from Mariupol failed because Russian troops fired on a Ukrainian convoy carrying humanitarian cargo to the city on Tuesday, according to Ukraine’s deputy prime minister. Russia insists it is ready to provide humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave five Ukrainian cities. The two sides blame one another for previous failed attempts. Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers are meeting in Turkey on Wednesday on the sidelines of a forum. WHAT HAS THE AP DIRECTLY WITNESSED OR CONFIRMED ELSEWHERE IN UKRAINE? In the encircled port city of Mariupol, women and children gathered in a basement shelter as outgoing artillery fire blazed in the distance. A Ukrainian soldier is seen telling people to remain united as a store is raided for essential items. “You don’t need to panic. Please don’t steal everything. You will live here together. This is your home,” he's heard saying. In the capital, Kyiv, families with small children continue to seek refuge inside a subway station to escape chaos and the sounds of war above. One university student told the AP that people go home from time to time to shower and get food only. Russian artillery has pounded the outskirts of Kyiv for days, destroying homes and other buildings. WHAT ARE UKRAINIAN OFFICIALS SAYING? Ukrainian officials say two people, including a child, were killed by Russian firepower in the town of Chuhuiv just east of the country's second largest city of Kharkiv late Tuesday. In the city of Malyn, to the west of Kyiv, at least five people, including two children, were killed in a Russian air strike, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian officials say Russian shelling made it impossible to evacuate the bodies of five people who died when their vehicle was fired upon near Kyiv and the bodies of 12 patients of a psychiatric hospital there, where around 200 patients remain without food and medicine. In the northern city of Chernihiv, Russian forces are placing military equipment among residential buildings, a top Ukrainian military official said. He said Russians dressed in civilian clothes are advancing on the city of Mykolaiv in the south. Ukraine’s energy minister says Ukrainian staff at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the largest in Europe, are physically and emotionally exhausted. He said about 500 Russian soldiers and 50 pieces of heavy equipment are inside the station, which the Russians took control of in an attack last week. WHAT IS THE VIEW FROM INSIDE RUSSIA? Increasingly isolated, Russia has cracked down on independent reporting and blocked access to Russian-language journalism by multiple foreign news outlets. Scattered protests against the war continue in the country, but sources of information about what is happening are diminishing for Russian audiences. U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday the U.S. would ban all Russian oil imports, even if it will mean rising costs for Americans, particularly at the gas pump. Shell also said it will stop buying Russian oil. McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and General Electric all announced Tuesday they’re temporarily suspending business in Russia. Some companies, such as McDonald’s, say they will keep paying wages for now to their workers in Russia. Read:Air alert declared in Kyiv as fighting continues Russia’s Central Bank sharply tightened currency restrictions in ways not seen since Soviet times. It ordered the country’s commercial banks to cap the amount clients can withdraw from their hard currency deposits at $10,000 in U.S. dollars. Any withdrawals above that amount would be converted to rubles at the current exchange rates. A senior Russian diplomat overseeing North American issues at the Foreign Ministry slammed U.S. actions against Russia, saying it had brought relations between the two nations “to the point of no return”. CIA Director William Burns testified before Congress Monday, saying some 13,000-14,000 Russians have been arrested since the start of the invasion for opposing the war and that it will be “an ugly next few weeks” as Putin doubles down in Ukraine.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its 12th day following what Ukrainian authorities described as increased shelling of encircled cities and another failed attempt to evacuate civilians from the besieged southern port of Mariupol. Russian and Ukrainian forces had agreed to an 11-hour cease-fire Sunday, but Ukrainian officials said Russian attacks quickly closed the safe-passage corridor. A third round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian leaders was planned for Monday. More than 1.5 million Ukrainians had been forced from the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged his people to keep resisting, and Ukraine's foreign minister said more than 20,000 people from 52 countries had volunteered to fight in Ukraine's newly created international legion. Russian President Vladimir Putin likened the West’s sanctions on Russia to “declaring war.” Here’s a look at key things to know about the conflict: VIOLENCE STOPS PLANNED CIVILIAN EVACUATIONS AGAIN Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko blamed Russian artillery fire for halting a second attempt in as many days to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, where food, water and medicine are scarce. A day earlier, Ukrainian officials similarly said Russian artillery fire and airstrikes had prevented residents from leaving. Putin accused Ukraine of sabotaging the effort. Russia has sought to cut off Ukraine’s access to the Sea of Azov in the south. Capturing Mariupol could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. Read:Oil prices jump as conflict in Ukraine deepens WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING ON THE GROUND? Russian forces launched hundreds of missiles and artillery attacks across the country, including powerful bombs dropped on residential areas of Chernihiv, a city north of the capital of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said. But a miles-long Russian armored column threatening the capital remained stalled outside Kyiv. Sunday evening, heavy shelling also came to Mykolaiv in the south and Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city. Efforts to evacuate residents from the Kyiv suburbs of Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin on Sunday were mostly unsuccessful. A senior American defense official said Sunday the U.S. believes that about 95% of the Russian forces that had been arrayed around Ukraine are now inside the country. Ukrainian air and missile defenses remain effective and in use, and the Ukrainian military continues to fly aircraft and to employ air defense assets, the official said. Ukrainian forces were also defending Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port city, from Russian ships, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich said. The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday announced plans to strike Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, and it alleged that Ukrainian forces were plotting to blow up an experimental nuclear reactor in Kharkiv and to blame it on Russia. The ministry offered no evidence to back its claims, which could not be independently verified. ZELENSKYY PUSHES CALL FOR NO-FLY ZONE Zelenskyy pushed his call for foreign countries to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Establishing a no-fly zone would risk escalating the conflict by involving foreign militaries directly. Although the United States and many Western countries have backed Ukraine with weapons shipments, they have sent no troops. Zelenskyy said in a video address on Sunday that “the world is strong enough to close our skies" and over the weekend he urged U.S. officials help his country obtain warplanes to fight the invasion and retain control of its airspace. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Sunday that some Ukrainian combat planes had redeployed to Romania and other Ukraine neighbors he didn’t identify. He warned an attack from planes operating out of those nations could be deemed an engagement by them in the conflict. DIRECTLY WITNESSED OR CONFIRMED BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Onlookers in Chernihiv cheered as a Russian military plane fell from the sky and crashed, according to video released by the Ukrainian government. In Kherson, hundreds of protesters waved blue and yellow Ukrainian flags and shouted, “Go home.” In Mariupol, Associated Press journalists saw doctors make futile attempts to save wounded children. Pharmacies ran bare and hundreds of thousands of people faced food and water shortages in freezing weather. In Irpin, near Kyiv, a sea of people on foot and even in wheelbarrows trudged over the remains of a destroyed bridge to cross a river and leave the city. Assisted by Ukrainian soldiers, they lugged pets, infants, purses and flimsy bags stuffed with minimal possessions. Some of the weak and elderly were carried along the path in blankets and carts. Kyiv’s central train station remained crowded with people desperate to leave, and frequent shelling could be heard from the center of the capital city. Read:Ukraine says Russia steps up shelling of residential areas DIPLOMATIC EFFORTS Intense diplomatic efforts continued, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Moldova pledging America’s support to the small Western-leaning former Soviet republic. The country is coping with an influx of refugees from Ukraine and keeping an eye on Russia’s intensifying war with its neighbor. Blinken says the United States and its allies are having a “very active discussion” about banning the import of Russian oil and natural gas. In a call with Putin that lasted nearly two hours on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron repeated calls for Russia to halt military operations, protect civilians and allow humanitarian aid. A French official reported that Putin said he does not intend to attack nuclear plants. The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said Sunday that Ukrainian staff at the country's largest nuclear plant are now required to seek approval for any operation, even maintenance, from the Russians. The Zaporizhzhya plant was seized by the Russians last week. Putin continued to blame the war on the Ukrainian leadership, saying, “They are calling into question the future of Ukrainian statehood.” In a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday, Putin said the invasion could be halted only “only if Kyiv ceases hostilities,” according to a Kremlin account. Israel’s prime minister spoke with Putin on Sunday, a day after they met directly in Russia. Israel is one of the few countries that has good working relations with both Russia and Ukraine. THE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION The death toll of the conflict has been difficult to measure. The U.N. human rights office said at least 364 civilians have been confirmed killed since the Feb. 24 invasion, but the true number is probably much higher. The World Health Organization said it verified at least six attacks that have killed six health care workers and injured 11 others. The U.N. World Food Program says millions of people inside Ukraine, a major global wheat supplier, need food aid “immediately.” Ukrainian refugees continued to pour into neighboring countries, including Poland, Romania and Moldova. The number of people who have left since fighting began has now reached 1.5 million, according to U.N. refugee agency. BUSINESS IN RUSSIA A growing number of multinational businesses have cut off Russia from vital financial services, technology and a variety of consumer products in response to Western economic sanctions and global outrage over the war. Two of the so-called Big Four accounting firms — KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers — said Sunday they were pulling out of Russia, ending relationships with member firms based in the country. TikTok said users won’t be able to post new videos in Russia in response to the government’s crackdown on what people can say on social media about the invasion, and American Express announced it was suspending all operations in Russia and Belarus. Netflix also announced it was suspending its service in Russia.